On Time Cube

A rare peek into the genius that is Gene Ray

More and more people every day are becoming acquainted with the Time Cube principle, conceived by one Gene Ray, philanthropist and champion Marbles player. If you’ve had a chance to look over the TimeCube web page, you must understand the necessity to comment upon this fundamental new principle of nature.

After reading the full text of the web page (and after a massive migraine from the 10000-point font), it seems to me that one of three possible conclusions can be drawn about Gene Ray and the theory of the Time Cube:

Gene Ray is in fact the wisest human in the world, and is capable of understanding things that no one else had yet dreamed of conceiving.

Gene Ray is a paranoid schizophrenic who believes that he is surrounded by cubes, while living in a cube, while being a cube himself, with his face being only 1 corner of his 4-corner head.

The Time Cube is really an elaborate metaphor that Gene Ray created to describe something for which he can’t find other words. After all, he does keep referring to his principle as “ineffable.” Therefore, trying to describe any aspect of it would prove useless, as his web page clearly shows.

In a nutshell, Gene Ray presents a theory that everything in nature revolves in a 4-stage (4-corner) metamorphosis. This includes human beings, which supposedly go through the “corners” of baby, child, parent, and grandparent. This also includes the planet Earth which, according to Ray, experiences four days’ worth of rotations within a single day. Ray also applies the theory to the human face, saying that your face is only one corner of your head; therefore, you believe that you are only one fourth the person you really are.

And of course, as is standard in any crackpot worldview, Gene Ray insists that the academic establishment is conspiring to prevent his theory from being given consideration. He fearlessly calls educators assholes and stupid and evil, and urges young students not to listen to their shithead professors and debate the Time Cube freely. Ray couples this with the idea that human language is “counterfeit,” and that all words we speak are evil and damaging. An additional outgrowth of Ray’s hate against words is his disdain towards God (presumably the Christian one), since all religions are, in one way or another, based on words.

Moreover, Gene Ray believes himself to be the “wisest human” who has ever lived, and, on occasion, has called himself Dr. Gene Ray (despite his hatred of academia), all because he is the first to discover this principle of the Time Cube.

My curiosity about the Time Cube can best be expressed in the form of questions and comments which I will address towards each major portion of the theory.

Obvious Mathematical/Physical Difficulties

Since when does a cube have four corners? A cube has 8 corners, 6 faces, and 12 edges. A cube doesn’t have 4 of anything! However, Gene Ray might be referring to “corner” as in the corner of a room. But for that to make sense, we would need to assign a “top” and “bottom” face to each cube we conceive, which would not be practical.

The number 4 itself is a square, not a cube.

Aside from the number 4, Gene Ray pulls other numbers out of nowhere, like 4/16, 2x4x4, and so on.

Why does all available evidence show that the Earth experiences one day within a single rotation, instead of four days like Ray suggests? In fact, a single rotation is precisely what defines a “day,” so to say that more than one day occurs within a single rotation is meaningless.

A number of times in the text, Gene speaks of an “absolute proof” of his theory, but never presents one. And the web page that is supposed to hold his explanation of the “4/16 space-times” is conveniently under construction.

Gene claims that he will give $1000 to the first person to disprove Time Cube. What would constitute such a disproof? Gene himself calls Time Cube “ineffable.” Being ineffable makes Time Cube unfalsifiable, and thus unscientific.

Conceptual Inconsistencies

Gene Ray claims that it is the educational system that is preventing children from learning about Time Cube. So then how can Gene Ray understand Time Cube if he was “educated” in the same way as the rest of us? What was it that made him realize the alleged cubic state of nature?

What reason would the educational establishment have to prevent children from learning about Time Cube? If a person grew up completely isolated on an uninhabited island (without an educational system), would she understand Time Cube? I’m willing to bet that she would probably experience a single day in a single Earth rotation.

The various applications of the Time Cube theory presented by Gene Ray (rotation of the Earth, the human face, the human races, and human metamorphosis) are completely unrelated. How can a single theory apply to such radically different phenomena?

Human Metamorphosis

When does a “baby” become a “child”?

A person can be a “parent” and a “child” at the same time. Many people who have children also have living parents. Similarly, a person can be a “grandparent” and a “parent” simultaneously. Do these people occupy more than one corner of their cube?

What if a person never becomes a parent? Is every person required to go through the four-corner metamorphosis?

Many people have great-grandparents who are still living. In what stage of the metamorphosis are they?

Should a 50-year-old person who has never had children still be considered a “child”?

Do people who adopt a child transform to the corner of “parent” (e.g. a homosexual couple, or a woman who cannot become pregnant), or will they also remain children?

Gene classifies humans into 4 separate races: whites, blacks, asians, and native americans (“redskins”), probably to fit in with his obsession with the number 4. But on what race-corner would a person fit whose parents are of different races?

The Big One

How will understanding Time Cube change our life? What’s the difference if one Earth day is 24 hours or 96 hours? How will Time Cube resolve world hunger? Stop terrorism? Cure cancer? Bring interstellar travel? I mean, what’s the incentive for people to start believing in Time Cube? At least Christianity promises salvation — what does TimeCube promise?

Communications With Gene Ray

Believe it or not, I have exchanged a few e-mails with Gene Ray. I must admit, he was quite prompt in responding to me. But was he coherent? Well, judge for yourself. The following is an actual response from Gene after I sent him an e-mail asking him to go into a little more detail about Time Cube:

Hi Dmitry,

The Time Cube demonstrates that creation is actually Cubic, not 1-corner singularity as taught by academia and religion.. Think of a 4-corner classroom as representing the 4-corners of Earth, wherein stupid educators teach only 1-corner knowledge.

There are 4 simultaneous 24 hour days in a single rotation of Earth. There are 4 simultaneous years in a single rotation of Earth around the Sun. Each season has its own separate year. Your 4 corner head has only a 1-corner face – proving you to be only 1/4 or 1-corner of the entity you believe you are. Humans rotate around 4-corner stages of human metamorphosis as in baby, child, parent and grandparent. There should be a video tape and book available after the MIT lecture and debate. Your problem with comprehending the Time Cube may be due to your academic brainwashing and indoctrination. Time will tell.

Gene Ray
[12.25.01]

Conclusions

Gene Ray has drummed up somewhat of a following over the years, with pro- and anti-Cubic websites popping up now and then; more proof that people will believe just about anything. I suppose the reason I felt compelled to comment on Time Cube is due to the utter absurdity of Ray’s statements and the vastness of his delusion.

Ray was invited to lecture at MIT in 2002 and, more recently, at Georgia Tech. While I do appreciate the humor value in letting him lecture at any university, I feel somewhat sorry for Gene Ray himself, who believes that his audience actually buys into (if not understands) what he’s talking about.